Album Notes

On their first album, And How!, the San Francisco trio known as Weather Pending creates deep, sultry, continuously unfolding music with a sound that’s vaguely familiar and surprisingly unique, a fever dream of exquisite beauty. The band’s sinuous electronic grooves and the smoky vocals of singer Janie Oliver draw you in, enticing you with their understated charm. Bass player and producer Rob Cross accompanies Oliver’s luminous vocals with the dark, melancholy rhythms of hip hop and dub reggae, profound tones that swirl and dance with the elemental force of a restless ocean while guitarist Brian Bloi’s chords color with shimmering overtones that emote with aching melodies. The album’s ten sultry songs have a cinematic, one drop, hip hop flavor driven by the subliminal swing enhanced by guest drummers Max MacVeety (Crown City Rockers, Zion I) and Derek G. Taylor (Nino Moschella, Alice Russell, Hyim, Darondo, Park).

And How! is a group effort, a mix of home recordings and studio work, assembled by Cross at Broken Radio Studios in San Francisco. It was recorded live to two inch analog tape on a Studer tape machine, with overdubs done at Cross’s home studio. MacVeety and Taylor, though recorded at different times play simultaneously on almost every track, giving the music a sense of swing most electronic music lacks.